A Normal Day
by shirleypositive72
Summary: A companion to "That Picture" and "While They Dance On A Pin". Dean awakens from one of the many nightmares we all pretend he doesn't have.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: The further adventures of Dean Winchester and OC Jane Downey in the That Picture universe. Set sometime in Season 4, between That Picture and While They Dance On A Pin.

On a normal day, waking up with Dean Winchester beside me is a high point. A highlight of the day, any day. But this isn't a normal day. Not many of them have been since his return from Hell. On days like this, I wake up angry that I don't know how to help him find normal again.

On a normal day, I wake up with his heavy, strong, protective arms wrapped around my middle, his hot, even breath on the back of my neck. His comforting warmth surrounding me with a feeling of safety; his unique scent easing my ascent into consciousness.

But not this time. In this moment, in the darkest hour just before the world acknowledges a new day, he is not strong. His breathing comes in gasps and uneven panting. His warmth is stolen by the sheen of sweat covering his shaking body. His arms cling, not in an effort to protect me, but in a need to feel protected.

Realizing he is trapped in yet another of the nightmares we all pretend he doesn't have, I look over to the bed to my right, into the worried, sleepy eyes of his brother. I shake my head, raise my brows, hope for an answer tonight that he didn't have the last time. Sam can only shrug, exhale. No new answers, just the same old question. How do we help Dean?

"Dean. Dean. It's all right, baby," I begin to whisper as I roll in his grasp. "Shh, Dean. It's okay. I'm here."

"No, not here. Please, not here," he murmurs, pushing me away slightly, but not really letting go. "Not real."

"Sam? Have you heard this before?" I whisper, knowing my best friend can hear me. These motel rooms afford precious little privacy, and, at least at this second, I'm grateful the beds are so close together. My boys always manage to have me between the two of them, always protected. But this new addition to Dean's nightmare vocabulary has me worried all over again. Usually he just repeats no and please. This time he seems to be struggling with his own reality.

I stroke his face, smooth his hair, whisper his name, anything I think might be soothing or relaxing to him. He's so tense that his muscles are straining, contracted painfully, using his own strength against him.

"Dean, please wake up. Just open your eyes," I say a little louder. I hear Sam start to move around on his bed. He will only let this go on for so long before he has to do something, anything, to try to help his brother. There's still a strain in their relationship, an unfamiliar distance that even Sam's absence for all those years at Stanford couldn't match. But, God, Sam needs Dean to be okay. Almost as much as I do.

Dean rolls on his back, props himself up against the headboard with jerking movement, as though he can feel the worried tension around him. He's struggling to surface but is not fully freed from the dream. I crawl on his lap and lean forward to hold him tight, hoping to bring him comfort with just the closeness. Maybe I can ease his return to this reality, the reality I need him to hold onto. I'm straddling him, which on a normal day would be a thing I wouldn't do with Sam in the room, at least not this intimately. These aren't normal days.

Dean stirs, opens his eyes, and sees me staring worriedly. "Not here, Jay. Please don't be here," says so quietly, eyes glassy with tears that threaten to fall down the face of the strongest man I've ever known. What the hell is he seeing through those beautiful eyes?

"Oh, my God," Sam groans, a sad sound. "Jay, it's hell. He's in hell," he explains, my expression clearly as disbelieving as I feel.

"Dean! Dean, wake up! Wake up now, baby, please," I plead, growing frantic, desperate to get him away from that, from there, to rescue him in a way I was unable to before. "Please, look at me!"

"Jane, calm down," Sam says as he swings his legs over the edge of his bed, tossing the covers aside. Like me, he's dressed as I suppose most hunters dress to sleep: comfortable but still prepared to run or fight. No badass wants to be embarrassed by running bare-assed down a busy street. He, like Dean, is wearing a tee shirt, dry white to Dean's sweat-drenched gray, with gym shorts on as a concession to my presence. When they're alone, when I'm not on a hunt, I know he rocks his boxer briefs like Dean is currently doing. They just keep their jeans close at hand. Big bro is not in love with the idea of his little bro parading his package around the room with me in it, though. I myself am wearing a small, tight, tee shirt and fleece running shorts. Dean wants me covered, but he likes to feel my skin. When it's cold, he just has to deal with sweats, but when it's warm I don't mind complying with his wishes. Not even a little bit.

"I can't calm down, Sammy. We have to wake him up!" I'm a little louder than I'd planned, but it gets the job done. Dean's eyes become more focused. I think he really sees me now.

"Jane?"

"Yeah, baby, it's me. You awake now?"

"Uh, yeah. What?"

"You were… restless. It was really hard to wake you up, Dean."

"She tried, man. You just kept muttering, but you wouldn't wake up, not really."

Dean looks over to Sam, seeming to be surprised when he hears his brother's voice. He's awake, but still not completely in touch with his surroundings. This is so unlike him that my fear for him is not yet completely eased.

"I'm fine." He's not fine. It's just what they say.

"Dean, what-"

"I'm fine, Sam!"

"Dean. Stop. You're not fine," I tell him, folding my hands around his neck, cradling his head. I want him to look at me.

"Jay…" He tries to roll his face away from mine, to break eye contact.

"No, Dean. It's time we talk about this. You can't keep doing this. You're so tired. Talk about it, baby. Maybe it will help with the nightmares."

"I'm not having nightmares."

"Bullshit, Dean," Sam challenges.

"What did you say?" This time he's successful in whipping his head away from me. Sammy just got the bitch face.

"I said I call bullshit. You are having nightmares. Nearly every night. She won't say anything, she won't let me say anything. Until now. You were terrified, Dean. What the hell was happening to you?"

"Hell! Hell was happening!" What-" He grips tightly to my hips and lets it out. "It was always you. The two of you,' he whispers. "They used you both against me. I tried to remember that it couldn't be you, when I left you were both alive, that they were fucking with my head. But it sounded so much like you. Every damn time, it sounded just like you. Sam, I've heard you cry since you were born. And Jay, God, I couldn't forget what it sounds like when you scream in pain if I tried. That time when the witch cut you, that sound…"

"Dean, we weren't there. We were never there," his brother assures him. Pain and relief battle for place on Sams' face. I know how he feels. To hear the agonies he suffered does not bring comfort, but knowing what has caused him to suffer night after night… Well, at least now we understand a little more of what we're seeing.

"I know that. I do, I know it. But in my memories, it's still real there." He looks lost and young. This isn't the first time he's spoken about his experience in hell. He opened up only just a bit to Sam. He's told me smaller aspects of his time there. This is different. He's never mentioned us being there before. He's becoming agitated, restless. He wants to move, but I can't let him go.

"I'm here, Dean. Not there. Never there. I'm right here with you. Can't you feel me. You're holding me, I'm holding you. I'm here."

His arms like steel wrap around me, pull me tighter, kissing my neck, hands spread over the small of my back. He needs me. He needs what he will only take from me. I kiss him deeply, and he becomes demanding, rough. All thought of Sam's presence four feet away are nearly gone, incidental, not important. He needs closeness, he needs reality, he needs release, and I'm offering all of it. I hear Sammy get up and grab the car keys before he slips out the door.

"The torture. It was always your face on the table. Always your voice screaming for mercy," Dean continues, unable to stop the revelations now that he's let them peek out from behind the wall he created to contain them. Holding me ever closer, he kisses me between each sentence, drawing every breath against my skin.

"It wasn't me," I try again and again to reassure him, tears in my eyes but not in my voice. He can't feel the pain I feel, I won't let him. He has enough of his own. Right now, I will only give him the strength he needs.

"Your skin was slick with blood, ripped to shreds. It was always you, Jay."

"You feel my skin right now? It's under your fingertips right at this moment. Not then, not there. Here," I tell him, pulling back to allow him to run his hands over me.

"Slick, blood," he murmurs, losing himself to the past again.

"No! Not blood. Sweat. You make my pulse race, you make me sweat just being close to you. Do you hear my voice, Dean?"

"Screaming, every day."

"Not screaming anything right now. But your touch can make me scream your name. From the roof, baby, it's that good. The people next door hear me. Sammy hates it," I whisper against his jaw, smiling at the thought of Sam's perpetual discomfort with Dean's and my active and quite vocal sex life.

"Jay, I'm sorry."

"Why? Why are you apologizing?"

"All this," he explains with baleful eyes and mournful tone. He pulls away enough to look me in the eyes again. "It's so much more than you signed up for."

I huff, exasperated, right in his face. "You think so? You think this is more than I can handle? I survived four months of you actually being in hell, Dean. I can ride out some nightmares."

"Jane-"

"No. Shut up. This is not too much. You will never be more than I can handle. Do you understand?" I ask, roughly capturing his mouth before he can speak. I have to show him, in a language he understands so well, that he's mine. Just mine. I'm not losing him to hell, or his past, or himself. He's mine. And I'm his.

A/N: I was going to make this a one shot, but decided to end part one here. My question is, "To smut or not to smut?" I've been able to keep this series rated T, and I don't want to lose any of my precious few readers. So, drop a line with your thoughts

******Also, the next chapter of WTDOAP is following close behind this rabid plot bunny. I finished yearbook, so I have time to write again!**


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Here be smut. But it's Dean smut, so… Dean smut always gets a pass.

Sitting on top of Dean Winchester is not a new occurrence for me. It's happened at every opportunity since the day I turned eighteen. It's never gotten old. It's never gotten routine. It's never gotten to a point where I wouldn't do it again at the very next opportunity. Not ever. It is always exciting, always a desired event. We both realized after he went to hell that we are not guaranteed one more chance at anything. So we take our joy when we can find it. Sex is definitely one of those things.

This moment, though, holds more desperation than any time since the days before he was dragged to hell, when we realized we would not be able to stop it from happening; when we realized joy would be taken from our lives. This moment is less about comfort than it is about convincing ourselves that we can still have that joy. And so I find myself sitting on top of Dean Winchester.

I lean into him, wrap myself around him, wrap myself up in him, kissing him so violently that it almost feels like we're in a fight. I guess we are, in a way. I'm fighting to make him understand that here and now is not there and then. He's fighting to shake off the damage that drags him down. As long as we're fighting for the same outcome, I can deal with it.

So many times while he was gone I imagined his body, his smell, his power. The night he returned was beautiful and slow and personal and tender. In the time since then we have played games in bed, and had quickies in the Impala, and had shower sex as much to squick Sammy out as to be together. We've gotten rooms to ourselves, and made the most of the times when Sam has left us alone for more than five minutes when we had to share. We've holed up in our room at Bobby's for entire weekends, naked, drunk, and happy.

But this is different. This is unforgiving yet full of forgiveness. It's selfish while we give ourselves to each other. But as I rock back to give him room to pull up my shirt, I don't care about any of that. I only care about his teeth as they graze my nipple when his calloused hands have finally lifted that damn shirt above my head. My arms are still raised, my breath caught in my throat, my body arching back to allow him more room to do what he is doing so well. The touch of his tongue brings my arms down around his shoulders to cradle his head as it does just terribly delicious things to me.

I moan and begin to writhe. His fingertips travel down my sides causing me to shiver until they reach my hips, stilling my unconscious movements. His hot mouth moves up my chest, my neck, leaving heavy breath on every pale inch. He tastes like whiskey. Whiskey and Dean. He takes my lips, knowing they belong only to him, only ever to him. The desperation is still there, mounting with the need for more. More skin, more teeth, more him.

Clutching the hem of his shirt, I desperately pull it up his back, raking his skin with my nails. He doesn't seem to mind and neither do I. Our pleasure often comes with pain. It's the life we live. And, oh, how I love the groan he voices. So primal and just barely controlled. We break apart only for the purpose of removing that damn barrier between our skin, between him and me, between what we both need now more than anything else. Nothing else matters as much at this moment as getting him inside me.

Dean feels my need and suddenly sits taller, straightening his back, pulling me closer. I feel his abs contract against my stomach, feel those bowed legs bending to give me seat. His hands move up my back, stopping behind my head to grip my hair tightly. I am held still, trapped by his hold when he begins to completely overwhelm my heightening senses. He grinds slowly upward, nips my bottom lip, slides the one arm lower until he grasps my ass. Pulling me closer, tighter to the straining object of my need.

"Shorts off. Now." And there it is, the sound I didn't know I was waiting for. The gravel in his voice tells me he is fully in this moment, fully removed from the nightmare that woke us. That voice sends shivers up and down my back. Chills my skin as it warms my blood. It promises sexy, dirty, naughty, nasty things to come. It's one of my favorite sounds in the world.

He straightens his legs and I move mine to kneel on my knees between them. Dean begins to lower my shorts. He moves roughly, not hurting me, just impatient. Reaching my arms out so I can steady myself by holding on to his shoulders, I can tell that the fear that was trembling through his body when he first woke is gone. He's focused on something else just now. When he reaches my knees, I lift on my toes just slightly so he can keep going. The shorts pass my feet with a lean of his body and a tug with his hands. Completely bare to him now, my anticipation ratchets higher.

He palms my ass and pulls me back into the saddle of his lap. Wet, hot kisses just below my ear have me falling into the familiar frenzy his touch always brings. I'm naked, wrapped around him, as close as I can get, and it's still not enough. My hands glide up from his broad shoulders meaning to caress his face but instead holding on to either side, holding him to me when I can't reign myself in any longer. Teeth pressing into soft flesh, tongues tasting every unique flavor, heaving breaths and sounds with no syllable are what we have become. Both of his strong hands trail hot paths down my thighs to my knees, holding them tightly to his body. I know what's coming next, and I prepare for the move that follows.

When he rolls us, when he is hovering just a breath from my skin, when I am surrounded by him in every direction, it is almost enough. It's almost what I want, what I need. Surrounded by him, sheltered within his presence like this, it's easy to forget that he was the one who woke up the needier of the two of us. There is always an aura of danger around Dean Winchester. Always. It's who he is, part of the make up of his being. But I never feel safer than when I'm in his arms.

But just now, at this moment, the glint in his eyes promises something very different from comfort. Intoxicated by the feel of the sweat dampening his hair, the taste of his skin, I almost miss him guiding my hands to the band of his black boxer briefs. Almost. I slide them down with a light touch, feeling his muscles flutter at the tickle. I push them over that magnificent ass and remove them completely with my toes when my hands can't reach. It's a move I learned from a movie, and it makes him smile every time I do it. This time is no exception.

"Damn, Jay, I love it when you do that," he groans against my breast.

I was going to tell him that I know he does, but he takes my nipple in between those perfect lips, and I can't form the words. His straining cock between us, his fingers signaling his path of intent, the three-day scruff burning my skin as he becomes more and more passionate - it's too much but still not enough.

"Dean, please," I beg. I've never begged for help, or mercy, or relief from pain. I've never begged for my life. I've never begged for anything except Dean Winchester. "Oh, God, Dean, please."

He doesn't tease me, or make me clarify my request as he might on a normal day. But this isn't a normal day, and all playfulness is absent. This is about being alive, about finding something good and decent after hell. After Hell.

This is about the feel of him entering me in one swift, steady movement. The moment of feeling just too full, then feeling complete and whole. It's about that split second, just before the single-minded pursuit of our physical pleasure, when we feel the perfection of union, the closeness that others talk about and sing about but never get quite right. It's about all of the love we feel for each other and the peace we can only find in being together. It's about that nearly imperceptible simultaneous sigh of happiness. Perfect happiness.

And then it's about straight up fucking. It is, after all, one of the things my man does best. Sexy beast and sex god.

He begins a smooth rhythm, deep and slow. He's kissing me deeply, arms on either side of my head, holding himself above me. My legs wrap around him, pulling him closer and closer until there is no room for breath between us. My arms wrap around his back, stroking the rippling and straining muscles until he hits just the right spot, and I begin to scratch and grasp the rolling skin. He can feel it, too, and his hips speed up.

"Dean," I gasp, not even knowing myself what I'm asking for.

"Damn it, Jane. So good."

He knows what he wants. He wants it fast and hard. And he knows he can have it. Reaching up, he grabs my arms and pulls them from his body. Locking them in place against the mattress above my head, he roughly grips them in one hand and gets back what he needs. Control. He needs control. And, God, I love it when he takes control.

He takes all of me now. I'm his to take, and he knows it. Faster, deeper, harder he thrusts, the grip on my wrists tightening. That little bit of pain we both crave. The bed sways, my body rocks higher with each stroke, the slap and sting of wet skin loud in the otherwise silent room. Silent of every noise but the ones we make together.

I feel it rising, my body climbing to the peak, that place where only he can take me, where all thought is annihilated and I just feel. He feels the approach of orgasm in the rapidity of my breath, the tightening of my legs, the quiver of every muscle in my body, including the ones cradling him inside me. Every trick my body knows, it was taught by him, and he uses that to both our advantage right now. Keeping my arms bound in his left hand, he pulls my leg higher on his hip with his right, and pounds into me with a force that should hurt but doesn't. he knows just how far he can push me.

And with one more powerful thrust, he pushes me over the top.

"Oh,God, oh Dean!"

As I tremble, he murmurs against my skin words that are unimportant. That''s good, because I can't hear them anyway over the sound of my own voice. This is the yelling the people hear next door. This is the voice that drives Sam to the car, grumbling and red-faced. And before i have even come down, Dean is following me over with a shout of his own.

We slow, gradually. No sudden stop, no sense of having reached the goal with nothing left. we still have each other, still hold each other. When at last we separate, become two again instead of one, I lean my head on his still damp and heaving chest.

Playing my fingers across the tattoo on his chest, as his fingers graze the matching one on my hip, I ask, "Do you feel better, baby?"

"Yes, Jay. You always know what I need."

"It's usually the same thing I do, Dean."

He smirks, showing the dimples that could make him look young if his beautiful green eyes weren't so old, and says, "I think I'm getting better. I think tomorrow will be a normal day."

And I wish I could believe him.

A/N: That's it for this one. Leave a review because reviews equal love.


End file.
